Recycling Wedding Paper Waste

One of my best friends got married in April. We were honored to have our oldest daughter in the wedding as the flower girl. Special memories were made with the bride & groom all throughout the entire engagement & wedding process. I was also honored to make the wedding programs for this tropical cruise ship wedding!

We selected a fan style program with five pages: cover, bridal party, family, wedding ceremony & acknowledgements. I created them on Microsoft Publisher & printed them on 110 weight card stock. Each fan was about eight inches & I made 50 total. To secured them I used a diamond studded brad. We were going for elegant but fun, just like the wedding itself. The programs opened & closed, which the younger children enjoyed while they waited on the wedding ceremony to start. One of my favorite things was the quote on the back of the final page. “Two lives, two hearts joined together in friendship united forever in love.” – Anonymous

This was the rather large amount of paper waste created from the making of these wedding programs…

When I bagged it all up I put it on my shipping scale. It weighed 3 lbs 13 oz.

So far I have recycled the tiny pieces. I have used some of the wedding scraps for shipping materials. My five year old took some to turn into bookmarks and I still have 3 lbs 10 oz to go! I am determined to make use of it though.

My husband recently made me a deckle, since paper making is on my to-do list this summer. Maybe I can use some of the wedding scraps for that. I saw this great article on our EcoEtsy message board & I am also thinking about using it on some of our wooden bee bags that we use at a shows & events. I would love to hear any suggestions! I have a lot of paper to save!